


Feed the Devils

by twowritehands



Category: Burnt (2015)
Genre: Flashbacks, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-07 05:30:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14664300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twowritehands/pseuds/twowritehands
Summary: The aftermath of the kiss. Considering Adam’s sex addiction he and Tony must proceed with caution.





	Feed the Devils

**Author's Note:**

> The few lines of French are copy and pasted from Google translate, so they could be horribly wrong. English translations immediately follow in parentheses. 
> 
> Also, it seems that no one in the fandom can say exactly where Tony is from because he is a delightfully ambiguous little bean. The two authors behind twowritehands feel there is enough evidence to support that he is from Spain.

It took Tony longer than he liked to fully recover from Adam’s surprise kiss. He felt off kilter as he returned to work in the restaurant downstairs. Every thought he had scattered the moment it entered his mind, like a wave bursting over a rock. The rock was Adam Jones’ lips pressed to his own.

That blue eyed _bastard._

Following through with maitre'd duties, Tony kept rolling his grinning lips between his teeth, remembering the feel of Adam’s beard on them. Or dwelling on the phantom feeling of the grip of Adam's hands under Tony's ears, holding him close... 

What the hell was this?

It wasn't as if that was the first ever kiss Adam had landed on Tony from out of the blue. He used to do it all the time in Paris.  Usually when he was too high to stop himself from being as straight as he thought he should be.

And the few times Adam had been sober when he'd done it, he had only been in need of a fix so badly, he tried to seduce money from Tony's pocket. Going so far as to offer to whore himself to Tony's lust.

Tony had always been able to see through Adam Jones' advances. And for all that he loved Adam dearly,  he never let it go further than a kiss. He would push Adam away if he was stoned because an encounter with someone who had to be high first something wasn't what Tony deserved.  And for Adam's sober advances,  Tony would stop him long enough to promise that no cash would come of it if they continued. Of course Adam never continued.

This time though... This time,  Adam hadn't been high and he hadn't been after money for a fix.  His eyes had been clear and shining with reason, control and something else...

Tony had frozen under that look… so fucking soft… lingering… so fucking _content_ there just inches from Tony's face….

Tony had thanked him! (Ay dios mio, did he literally say Thank You? He did.  Fuck. He really did!) But he hadn't known what else to do!

The memory of Adam's sober, selfless sincerity made Tony's heart skip a beat each time he thought of it. As a result,  the best maitr'd in Europe no doubt gave more than one high paying diner a ridiculously dreamy little smile.

After closing for the day, Tony ran out of excuses to avoid the inevitable. His belly fluttered. He smoothed his hair and tugged at his cuffs. Time to face this like a man.

Perhaps Adam had seemed sincere, but one honest look was not a promise. By now,  Adam could have convinced himself he was straight again. He could be preparing to let Tony down easy.  Or pretend it never happened.

Deciding to get it over with,  Tony went to find Adam.

 

*

 

Adam was sequestered in his office. It was the only way he could possibly relax, with the sounds of a busy kitchen drifting through the glass door. He and Helene had come down stairs hours ago to find David eager to relinquish control of the kitchen back to either one of them.

Helene had taken the Pass, and Adam had slipped into the office. Since coming to London, he'd slept more than one whole night through on this couch. But this would be the first time he took a nap during dinner service. After the night he had, though, he figured it was best to maybe take it easy.

So he lay still with his eyes closed, faking sleep.

Thinking about Tony.

His mind had some well beaten paths around Tony Balerdi. Today he went as far back as he could… nearly twenty years ago...

_“Adam the pass!” Jean Luc said._

_Adam eagerly took over plating the food. The old man thumped him on the back with a proud smirk at his quick, fine work and left him to it. Adam worked with a big smile on his face._

_“Service!”_

_The doors parted and a skinny kid with a round baby face came for the order. He had long hair tied back in a short tail, eyes that widened as he beheld the chaos of the kitchen. He exuded the air of someone who barely knew how to carry two plates at once._

_His eyes locked on Adam. He smiled. The positively lecherous expression added years and subtracted the freshman air completely. This guy was new to waiting tables, but he was well versed in other things._

_Adam gulped._

_The new waiter took the plates and did not break eye contact until he pushed through the doors. The servers were always new, hardly worth learning names. Adam hastily resumed working--he had to impress Jean Luc--but he hoped this waiter had the chops to stick around. He seemed fun._

_“Who is the new guy in service?” he asked casually, when he could._

_“The baby Spaniard?” Max hummed around a bud. “Antonio Something…. I smell money.”_

_“Hell yeah, maybe he can get us into those exclusive clubs.”_

_Max frowned with intrigue at the thought and shrugged as if to say, who knows? Maybe._

Adam smiled at the memory. He was a dumb kid just looking for ways to get where he saw himself one day being. If he’d had a single iota as to what Tony would one day mean to him, he was sure that even the selfish little prick that Adam was back then would have drawn up short and paid some real attention.

Adam’s mind jumped from that first memory to the most recent… That kiss. The flabbergasted and slightly embarrassed Tony that followed it...

His entire body ached from the beating; getting blackout drunk and sleeping on a concrete floor had its consequences, and Reece's orgasmic eggs hadn't really been enough to curb all the hangover effects. But he still felt amazing. Michel’s sabotage had failed. Adam still had a chance at a third star. And he just kissed Tony. He _kissed_ him, right in front of somebody. So no take backs.

(Adam was vaguely sure he had kissed Tony before. God knew he'd wanted to so many times back in those golden days of Paris.... And in those darkest days, well,   Adam couldn't remember most of what he did. But he knew there had been no line he wouldn't cross.  And by the way Tony looked at him sometimes,  and the way others looked at the pair of them sometimes,  Adam knew he must have been a complete ass.  A repressed,  addicted,  manipulative, total ass.)

But whatever those other kisses had been,  they hadn't been like this last one. Nothing but cooking could even come close to that kiss.

The moment he'd done it, he'd felt the world open up. Then when Tony awkwardly babbled and left the room, that wide open world suddenly began to feel scary. Doubts crept in. Kissing Helene had seemed like a good way to make the fear go away.

God, Adam was glad his bruises stopped that reckless decision. That cowardice. Because Helene was beautiful and talented, but she wasn't what he wanted. Not what he really truly wanted. What he'd always wanted.

It made his heart pound when he thought about what was coming next. Because he was going to try. He would get a third star _and_ \--dare he say it--a shot at forever with his oldest, best friend. Because he finally understood that love, unlike French cuisine, wasn't about being perfect. You weren't supposed to trash it at the first mistake.

Love you had to work at. Working, forgiving, accepting--all of that-- _was_ the love. If it's not perfect….you hold it close anyway. And Tony had been demonstrating that for over a decade. Time for Adam to pull his weight in the relationship…

The glass door of the office opened with a soft woosh.

“Adam?”

God, he loved the way Tony said his name. Unlike the American way of emphasizing the AH, Tony put the punch on the DEM.

aDEM.

“Hm? Yeah, Tone. I'm awake.”

“So…. We are going to talk about it now or what?”

Hidden beneath the apron spread over his face, Adam’s grin pushed his ears back. He had been about to ask the same thing. He knocked the cloth away and gazed up at the sharp dressed man who was consistent but surprising, too.

Tony stood there in his five thousand dollar suit with his arms crossed and a challenging set to his jaw. A glint in his eye.

Clearly, Tony had decided to come into this conversation with his guard already up. Wielding doubt like a weapon. In short, he did not trust what had happened up in that hotel room. He didn't trust it one bit. (And why should he?)

Adam considered fucking with Tony and pretending for a bit that the kiss meant nothing.

He resisted the urge.

Time to work seriously for a second.

Adam lifted up slowly off the couch. His ribs protested but a couple of shallow breaths eased it. Now squarely in front of Tony, he got right to the point.

“Okay, let’s talk.” he agreed with a smile.

“Okay.” Tony echoed and shifted a little. He clearly didn't know where to start.

“What you did for me--for us, for the restaurant--was amazing. Calling the Michelin office to explain? That takes balls, Tony.”

Tony huffed, lips squirming with a flattered smile he tried to check.

Adam moved just a half step closer. “I haven't stopped thinking about you. Or that surprising choice for chapstick flavor.”

Tony's eyes glinted. He smacked his lips and dimpled. “Really?”

Adam nodded, eyes falling to those lips; remembering the way the taste of vanilla had laced that So Happy I Can Kiss You kiss. “Look, Tony.... I want to cook you breakfast. And not for why you think….” They shared a meaningful look, packed with their fondest memories of fifteen years. His raw confession was brittle. “I _have_ fallen, you know. And it scares the living hell out of me.”

Tony’s jaw dropped. Adam pressed on, feeling shaky but never so alive. He didn't even have anything planned just these notions. Like a new recipe he was feeling out as he went.

“I just know that I want you there when I wake up and I want to see you wake up, and, at five o’clock i just need you to be there to tell me it's all okay.” He shrugged lamely, “breakfast comes later.”

Silence. Taste test. Adam watched Tony's face. Will it be good or bad? Reward or punishment? Adam would accept whichever Tony deemed he deserved after running from this for eight damn years.

Mouth still open from shock, Tony swallowed. Adam repressed a grin. _Who does that?_

“A-adam. If this is true...then...then there is only one thing to do.” His professional brain had taken over, this was the maitre'd talking, arranging for top performance. Adam loved to see Tony’s rigid self control at work. “You are coming home with me tonight.”

A wave of excitement coursed through Adam as he followed Tony’s sudden brisk, business like pace toward the elevators. Cooks and waitresses bid them goodnight. Tony and Adam both did their best at appearing casual. Alone together behind the elevator’s closed doors, Adam’s blood spiked.

Adam had been with men before, but only ever when he got high enough to get over his hang ups. Back then, the only thing that mattered was feeling good and taking what he wanted--with anyone but Tony.

Of all the shit Adam pulled,  he never went there with Tony.  He could sometimes remember grabbing Tony, kissing Tony,  trying to get Tony naked.  But Tony always said no,  for one reason, or another.  Adam got everything and everyone he wanted back then, anything from cocaine to three women at once, but he never got Tony Balerdi.

Even Adam Jones on a cocktail of booze,  pills and crack knew it was because he couldn't hope to deserve Tony.

Now in the elevator, sober and perhaps still not deserving but so tired of resisting, Adam went in for another kiss. Their lips locked. Tony grabbed onto him and with unexpected animalistic force, he deepened the kiss. Adam found himself pushed against the wall. Shit.

Tony felt like a fucking brick wall that Adam could fall against without landing in the gutter. With a spike of adrenaline, Adam wanted to run full tilt at that wall. Maybe find a way to make it crumble. That would be fun….

“Okay, okay,” Adam broke away, grasping desperately at the last straw of self control. The wild devil in him--so recently freed from prison-- stirred dangerously.

This was a side of Tony he'd never known and he liked it enough to want to play with it. Find new and dangerous paths. But no. No. Can't do that.

“Wait wait wait. Slow down. We can't um….shouldn't. uh.”

Tony did not pull fully away, standing with his body pressing Adam to the wall. He looked confused and then it dawned on him. His dark eyes swept over Adam. His throat clicked. “Your addiction.”

“I need to be _careful_. Public sex is the kind of risky behavior I need to avoid.”

“Of course….” Tony stepped away and Adam found his body weight returned to his own two feet. Tony pushed his hair back. “Jhes, of course. What… what can I do to you that is safe, hm? Continue kissing you? Can I hold you?”

Yeah and yeah but Adam's voice didn't work. He thanked the elevator wall for holding him up. He wanted so much right now. But a million oysters taught him one crucial thing: _he did not need everything he wanted_. He would only take what he needed, what he worked to achieve.

He considered Tony’s thoughtful question.

Sex addiction was tricky business. Everyone was different. Each sobriety program had to be custom designed. So far Adam had only kept himself in check by abstaining from literally everything. To have a sex life, he would have to tread lightly. Go slowly. Make sure he didn't trigger the wild nymphomaniac caged inside.

To make it through the night, honestly, he just needed to fucking cuddle. And then he would work to earn the rest. But he didn't know how to ask.

The doors slid open, and Tony led him into the rooms he called home. Neat, orderly. Had a framed picture on the wall, the original gang in Jean Luc’s kitchen.

Looking at it, Adam flashed back.

_After a particularly busy evening service, Adam and his friends were scrubbing the whole kitchen down top to bottom, getting sudsy and soaking wet but with energy enough still even after eighteen hours of work to goof around. Jean Luc emerged from his office with an old camera and a command for everyone to make a group and say cheese._

_It seemed Jean Luc had surprising moments of sentimentality mixed in with his heinous temper._

_Adam had elbowed his way between Michel and Max. The kitchen door opened and a pair of servers came in. Jean Luc merrily waved them into the picture. One of them was Tony. Adam pulled the teen to stand in front of the exceedingly tall Michel, keeping an arm looped around his Spanish friend’s neck._

_He looked into the camera with a big smiling laugh, feeling for the first time that he was in a home where he truly belonged._

“Jesus,” Adam leaned toward the picture. A bright and shining little version of Adam hung all over a baby faced and laughing Tony. “How old are we here? Like twelve?”

Tony turned around in momentary confusion and then came to look at the picture. He snickered. “I am nineteen. You are twenty one.”

“Fucking babies,” Adam murmured and okay, at this point, he was treading water. Stalling for time. Trying to change the subject. If there was a woman in reach, he'd be kissing her by now.

“I mean,” he babbled, “We’re _so innocent_. Look at us!”

Tony’s shoulder touched Adam’s. “Before everything.”

Adam grunted. The road from there to here was long and at times literally deadly. The last hundred miles had been the hardest yet. And thanks to his ever present battle to maintain sobriety, it wouldn't even be the hardest to come.

With the topic of the old picture more or less closed, Adam struggled to find the nerve to look away from the old memory. Once he did, he'd be back in the present where everything felt on the line.

“Was I too rough with you in the elevator?” Tony asked. “Helene said you are hurt. I should not have forgotten it in my passion.”

Adam chuckled and finally faced his oldest friend and potential lover. “I've had worse, believe me.”

“I don't want to know about it.” Tony turned and stalked into the room. “Bad enough I can't find these guys who did this to you so I can, fucking--” he cut off and looked back at Adam as if to let the sentence be finished in silent understanding, but Adam wouldn't look away until he heard the rest of that thought. Tony knew it so muttered darkly, “Murder them.”

“Leave them alone, Tone. They’re crazy. You said so yourself.”

“Jhes, and now _I_ am crazy. It is good they are never coming back because if I see them again--”

“That’s sweet.”

They made eye contact. A comfortable lull fell. Adam realized that for all his insecurities and fear and doubt, he was safe here. Utterly safe. Tony gestured to the bedroom.

“You need rest. Come to bed. I will be out momentarily.”

Tony slipped into the bathroom.

Reminding himself to breathe, Adam kicked out of his shoes and jeans and got beneath the covers. The crisp sheets smelled clean and fresh. He closed his eyes, and thought about a million oysters and all the reasons he wanted to stay clean. He had to keep thinking big picture, long term. Living in the moment went out with public sex and all the other dangerous behaviors of his past. Nothing too spontaneous.

He could do this. But was it fair to Tony?

 

*

 

Tony looked for pajamas. He usually slept naked but with Adam he would need to wear something. In truth, Tony wasn’t sure exactly how sex addiction sobriety worked, but he trusted that Adam knew by now what was best for him. Apparently what Adam needed was to go slowly. Tony met his own eye in the mirror and resolved to go as slowly as Adam needed.

For sleeping clothes, the best he could do was keep on his undershirt and little red briefs. He brushed his teeth and combed a wet brush through his hair quickly, eager to return to Adam’s arms.

His heart thudded heavily. Eighteen years of friendship, half of which had been spent pining away in unrequited love. Three years of believing him to be dead and gone forever. Half a year of tenuous hope for a new beginning. One kiss and a love confession and now they would be sleeping together but not fucking.

Tony’s lips squirmed with a grin he irrationally felt the need to check as he stepped back into the bedroom. Life was surprising.

Adam looked to be asleep again. Tony climbed carefully into bed, unsure of how close he should get. Adam answered that question by reaching for him. They settled with the Adam’s head on Tony’s chest. Such a comforting weight. His hair and scalp smelled wonderful.

“This good?”

“Hm mm,” Tony whispered half choked with good fortune.

Adam inhaled deeply. “You smell amazing.”

Heat flashed under Tony's skin. He gulped. “Tell me more about these dangerous behaviors. Is that something from group?”

Adam grunted. “It’s how I keep myself in line. Starve the devil kind of thing. I’ve completely abstained for two years eleven months and twenty three days. By now I know my demons enough to control them. But it takes a lot. If we do anything it’s got to be low temperature stuff, in a condom. Like the fucking fish. No kinks, no spontaneity. I’m talking as vanilla as your lips.... That okay?”

Three years without a lover? That was practically a virgin again. Tony's cock twitched at the thought.

“You are asking a spanish man not to be spontaneous in love.”

Adam pulled away. “Right. It’s bullshit. I’m sorry--”

“No, no,” Tony pulled him back in and rested a cheek against his soft hair. “I didn’t say I couldn’t. I would do anything for you, Adam, and all you ask is I make plans. I can do that. I’m a fucking maitre’d, for Christ’s sake. Planning is what I do.”

“Okay, but, I feel guilty you don’t get the whirlwind you dreamed of. I fucked us up so bad.”

Tony took a beat to think. Adam knew him too damn well. Yes, he had countless erotic fantasies--but they did not compare to this real life, potent moment of connection.

Adding sex to this moment…. It made his heart skip to consider.

He did want Adam; he could not deny that.

But better safe than sorry. He would much rather have a hundred more nights like this than one sex crazed fling that would burn them both. This would be different than he ever imagined, but that wasn’t a bad thing.

“Obsessing over what might have been is something _I_ am not supposed to do, so I know it cannot be healthy for you either.” Tony said stiffly. “And anyway, spontaneity is overrated. What matters is passion, and you are the most passionate mother fucker I know.”

“Pretty sure you can’t call your boyfriend a mother fucker.” Adam teased with put-on offense to mask vulnerability.

Breathless, Tony bit his lip. Boyfriend? “I can when he is a three star chef.”

Adam squeezed him. “Thanks for saying three.”

“You are. When the real Michelin come, it will happen for you.”

“For us.”

Tony kissed him.

With a deep breath, Adam rested against a pillow and casually covered his eyes with the back of a wrist. Tony shifted to better watch his profile, to memorize it from this proximity. The ambient light of the city bled through the window with the music of distant traffic. Their feet touched under the blankets, a quiet little game of footsie. He found a ticklish spot on Adam’s calf and was blessed with a sleepy little Adam giggle.

Tony never felt better in his life.

“When did you fall in love with me?”

Adam settled back against his chest. “Not sure exactly….” he hummed lazily. “It was Paris, the hazy part. I think it must have been raining because I _always_ think of you when it rains. Every single time...and we were in an alley, I think.”

Tony's heart skipped a beat. He never imagined Adam would have an exact answer. His mind vaulted back to Paris, to every rain soaked alley he could remember. There were too many for a pair of kids who walked everywhere and partied too heavily every night.

But one memory would forever shine brighter than the others. The earliest one.

_He hated waiting tables. He hated his father for making him work here. He thought about leaving France. Mama would give him an allowance to live on, just to spite Papa, and he wouldn't need to work in a hell hole like this._

_Rain danced in the gutters and dripped off the dumpster._

_Someone stepped out into the alley, where he had hidden to get away from the madness for two minutes. Tony’s breath caught. It was the handsome cook with the blue, blue eyes._

_The cook seemed to recognize him the same moment, and they cracked shy grins at one another. He adjusted his blue cap, stuffed hands into the pockets of his dark blue apron, and broke the ice with a twanging word,_

_“Sup?”_

_American? What a fun surprise. Before he could recover, the cook extended a hand formally. “I’m Adam. Tony, right?”_

_In his life, no one had called him that. He loved it._

_They shook hands. Adam's lips twisted up in an impish smile. “Please tell me you speak English. I barely got French down, so Spanish is just…”_

_“We have to speak English to work here. So many fucking tourists.”_

_“Yeah,” relief sagged Adam’s shoulders and he slumped against the brick. “This city would be perfect if nobody knew about it.”_

_“I love Paris, but working here is especially miserable.”_

_“You're English is really good.”_

_“Thank you. I have had an expensive education. My German is better.”_

_“Whoa. Spanish, French, English and German, huh? Jesus. Max was right, you're some little prince or some shit.”_

_“I was. Until my father cut me off.”_

_“Cut you off? Why? What'd you do?”_

_“Nothing.” He insisted. Then, with a hooded glance, he shrugged. “I drove his lamborghini into a ditch but it was an accident. The person I was with distracted me with a most succulent kiss.”_

_Adam inhaled enough to balloon his chest, pulled on his nose. “So now you're sentenced to middle class labor as, like what, penance?”_

_“Something like that. He will calm down and come to his senses eventually.”_

_“What about this person you were kissing?” Adam asked, with just enough emphasis on the word person to indicate he suspected the truth._

_Down to the wire, Tony could not voice the proper pronoun. “We broke up.”_

_Adam continued to stare, a sort of dare for him to speak the truth. Competitiveness sparked, so he held his tongue._

_Someone inside called for Adam and made him look away first. He laughed and thumped Tony on the shoulder. “Hey, we’re all going to the Saint Sauveur after work. You should come.”_

Deciding to meet up with the cooks instead of going home to beg for money had set Tony on course for this moment right now. All because some dumb American flirted with him in Paris in an alley in the rain.

“Peut-être sommes-nous tombés amoureux ensemble,” he whispered. (perhaps we fell in love together).

Adam trembled. Tony instinctively held on tighter and kissed Adam’s hairline. When Adam spoke,  his voice was hot breath against Tony's shirt. "I came to terms with it, you know. Finally. "

Tony didn't have to ask. He pressed his mouth to Adam's hair to silently encourage him onward.

"All the groups and meetings I've gone to over the years," Adam's voice was rough,  sounding just like the voice of someone who'd fallen so low once as to be left for dead in a gutter, "Kinda had to really examine myself.  So I did. I don't deny it now. I'm bisexual."

Tony smiled.  "So we at least have that in common. "

Adam chuckled.  "Yeah that and the fact we've both spent years in love with the one person we couldn't have."

Tony felt punched in the gut. Adam loved him for years? All this time,  Tony had believed Adam's sexual advances had been repressed homoerotic need bubbling out at inconvenient  times. Stabs in the dark at an obviously willing target.

Hearing now that Adam had loved him even then... Tony had the overwhelming feeling that he had failed. 

He had known Adam lusted after men but was repressing his desires because of things he'd been told by his father. Tony had never considered that Adam could actually love a man. Let alone him.

Tony had known Adam was struggling, yet had not forced the issue. He should have done something.  Anything except stand back and watch Adam hang himself with his own shame.

"Tony?"

"If I had thought even once that you truly cared for me,  I would have fought to the death to save you,  Adam."

Lifting his head, Adam leveled a very blue and very hard look at Tony.  "Don't. No one but me could have saved me,  Tone. You have to understand that."

Tony grit his teeth and a moment then three passed before he accepted Adam's words.  He released the tension in his jaw and nodded.  Adam lowered back down to press his ear to Tony's heart.  "Anyway, internalized  homophobia was only one slice of the pie.  So much went so wrong because of a lot of reasons. The common denominator with all of them was my own cowardice. Of all the things I lost, I regretted you the most."

Tony closed his eyes and willed himself to stay in control.  For Adam. His gulp was too loud in the room. His voice perhaps a little unsteady.  "It is all the past. You have found your courage. And our time has finally arrived."

Silence fell. Neither felt the need to talk. A profound sense of serenity filled the room. Tony ran his fingers through Adam's hair.  Adam's chest swelled against Tony's ribs.

 

*

Adam loved getting his scalp stroked. It was an intimacy he'd not felt in years.  (Kinda hard to get it without putting out first.  So it'd all gone the way of his sex life. )

He focused on the feeling of Tony's fingers.  His arm braced across Adam's back.  His chest. Adam breathed in the peace of the moment.  The sense of safety that was undeniably underpinned by promises of passion and orgasm.

Adam hurt for it--that escape.  That blessed release.  The wild animal free to ravage and wreck. But he refused to feed those dogs. He refused to even imagine feeding them. 

Instead,  he breathed.  He snuggled. He smiled when Tony whispered sweet nothings.  It felt like Tony was already making love to him... But that was slightly ridiculous, right? They were just cuddling.  Not even hard. Right?

After years of conditioning,  Adam's body no longer expected release. He didn't even masturbate. His occasional hard ons were meditated away. The result was that even now in the arms of the man he loved,  his profound feelings of desire and lust hadn't yet culminated in an erection. 

But what about little Tony?

Instinctively,  Adam shifted a leg over and up ever so much until his thigh brushed--yep. Tony was hard. He tensed when Adam's thigh brushed him. Even bucked a little into the friction. 

And pow.  Just like that, Adam started to get hard. His dick twitched and blood rushed to fill it. Tony shifted under him and his erection grew to tent his red breifs.

Blood began to pound in Adam's ears. He felt dizzy.

“Mon amour, puis-je vous avoir maintenant?” (My love, can i have you now?)

Adam gulped. His desire warred with his reason.  One needed to submit to Tony.  The other was horrified that bending to the power of that feeling would undo years of progress,  sending him careening into that life he barely escaped. Fucking strangers in dirty places.  No prep.  No condoms.  Spit for lube.  Needing a needle to kiss his vein before he could look himself in the mirror again...

But then Adam looked into Tony's eyes.  They were both sober.  In the privacy of a room they had a right to be in. There would be condoms and plenty of lube and proper preparation. And it was Tony.

For the first time in far too long, a decade at least,  Adam felt true and profound sexual desire while simultaneously feeling utterly safe.

Adam nodded.

 

*

 

Unleashed,  Tony pressed Adam into the mattress, savoring each and every inch of skin his lips found in the low light coming in from the uncovered windows. He allowed himself to press his hard dick unashamedly against Adam, who rose to meet him. When they kissed again he could feel a pulse in Adam’s trembling bottom lip.

“Adam…my Adam...I love you.” Tony whispered these soft reassurances until his own heart felt like it could break.

And Adam,  god,  Adam was heavenly.  His heavy,  firm body beneath Tony's was mostly pliant with just enough resistence. His taste,  his smell,  the sounds he gave. Tony was sure he couldn't last,  but he would try his best to give Adam a good time.

When he touched Adam's hole,  the man broke away with a gasp and his unsteady voice paired with the glint of fear in his eyes hit Tony like a train.  "Condoms. I--we... We have to use a condom."

Tony cupped the side of his face.  "Of course."

Adam grimaced.  "Sorry."

"Never apologize to me for taking care of yourself."

Blue eyes ignited with a look so damn bright Tony had to look away.  Love.  He knew that was love. His heart pounded as he dug through the bedside drawer. He touched everything in it twice before realizing the condoms weren't there.

So they both had to get out of bed and turn on all the lights and search the whole suite to find an old lost box of condoms. It turned up in the back of a bathroom drawer Tony never ever opened. Only one left.

 

*

 

When they found the rubber, and Adam’s very last excuse died, his lungs stopped. This was it. Time to wade into shark infested waters and pray.

Lights off to keep the devil blind. Back in bed. Tony whispered exactly what he would do. Adam’s voice broke on single affirmative syllables each time. Tony took care of him. Yes, yes, it was all within limits and so fucking amazing.

Passion. Trust. Love. Instinct. Four ingredients. Adam couldn’t believe it. So simple in design but complex in flavor. Unbelievable. World shattering.

Their tongues were touching as Adam came apart from the inside out. He convulsed.

“Holy god. Did you feel that?” he asked on the tails of his orgasm, chest heaving and more than sweat stinging his eyes. “We broke. The world.” _How did they do that?_ Adam used to sneer at condoms and firmly believed they ruined sex. How did they use one in missionary position and have the best sex of his entire life?

Out beyond Adam's sex dazed peripherals, Tony chuckled, also breathless. He stripped off the rubber, tossed it in the bin and spooned him. Adam twisted to squint at him in the dark. “It was good for you, right?”

“I am still shaking.” Tony’s fingers were trembling against Adam’s skin.

Adam laid a hand over those perfect fingers which had so deliciously ruined him and hummed when he detected a sound against the window. He could see the city lights glinting in the water drops slipping down the glass. He whispered, “It’s raining.”

“Jhes.” Their whole bodies fit together. Cliches about puzzle pieces never seemed so fucking right.

The sound of the rain, the play of light and water filling the room with little falling shadows, the feel of Tony breathing--Adam sucked in a slow deep breath and savored the moment. His bruised ribs still hurt but so much felt so right in the world that he was glad for the slight pain. It helped him know how real this was.

“Je t’aime, Tony.” (I love you, Tony.)

Tony’s lips pressed into his neck. “Dors, mon amour.” (Sleep, my love)

 

*

 

Movement woke Tony. And it was not his own. Someone else lay in bed with him, shifting, almost flinching. It was still dark outside, the room glowing softly with city night lights. The rain had stopped.  
  
Within a heartbeat, Tony remembered the night before, and that the dark warm shape of heavy muscle in his sheets was Adam Jones. Within another heartbeat, Tony understood that the chef was having a nightmare.  
  
"Adam?" He laid a hand on the man's chest, feeling the chain and pendant of the St. Lawrence of Rome necklace. He could also feel Adam's heart thrashing. He shifted again, making an unshaped sound of fear.  
  
Tony sat up and spoke louder. "Adam?" He gave a gentle shove.  
  
Adam came awake with a jolt and a half shout. It seemed to take him a minute to realize where he was or that Tony was a friend.  
  
"Oh, Tony," he panted. "Shit. Did I wake you?"  
  
"Are you okay?"  
  
"Yeah," he said unconvincingly.

Tony said nothing, only took his hand. “It helps to talk about it.”

Adam turned his face away, then glanced back and shrugged.

A touch came out of the shadows; Adam’s fingers gently tucking Tony’s hair behind an ear. Next came his deep rough voice in a half whisper.  
  
"I want to be good for you, but honestly, sweetheart I don't know if I can. It gets so hard sometimes. You know? I don't know how I'm going to hold it all together."  
  
Tony inhaled and exhaled. Yes this was huge. And the dark place Reece had found Adam in just the night before was very serious business. (Reece had called Tony and spoken to him about the details of Adam's fall off the wagon.) But there were people trained to help with that and one day at a time, they could make it.

He pulled Adam against him, both reclining on the pillows. "Do you know how to cook?"  
  
"What? Of course."  
  
"How to teach Helene and David?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Can you keep Max from cutting off another nose?"  
  
Adam gave a short laugh. "Yeah."  
  
"And when it gets to be all too much, do you know how to take me by the hand, pull me into our bed and make love to me?"

"Yes." He whispered.  
  
"Then everything is going to be okay. Just do what you do. And I will take care of the rest." As Adam murmured thanks and cuddled in closer, Tony looked at the clock, curious as to how much longer they had before his alarm would go off. He found the digital readout to say 4:58am.  
  
He smiled, drew a deep breath, and released it. "Everything will be okay, my love. Everything will be perfectly okay."


End file.
